The Elder Scrolls

[Madame Adequate]

most of these are common flaws with like every Bethesda game!

I think Bethesda are somewhat overrated but Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Skyrim, and yes even Fallout 3 have all been pretty enjoyable to a greater or lesser degree and have one way or another avoided most of these problems. For example Morrowind and FO3 have level-scaling like Oblivion does, but they both handle it infinitely better and more sensibly from a gameplay standpoint and neither ever screwed things up like Oblivion does as standard.

Saying that Oblivion's levelling system screws you over is like saying that not IV and EV training your Pokémon screws you over. You don't need to max everything out. It's completely unnecessary. Whether you think it's bad or not isn't the point, I'm simply pointing out that you would have to do something inconceivably stupid to find yourself gimped by levelling. I literally cannot think of what you must be doing to find yourself in such a situation.

You don't need to max everything out, but if you go level up through non-combat things like alchemy, barter, lockpick, or speech (ahahaha never use speech) then you're not going to be able to increase your combat stats like strength and endurance even remotely enough to keep up with the enemies. Just because you avoided it does not mean it is "inconceivably stupid" to fall victim to it, and not only do we have people saying this happened to them in this very thread, but it's also one of the foremost complaints about the game since it came out years ago and you can find an abundance of posts discussing it all across the Internet.

My main disappointment with the Elder Scrolls games is how they keep removing brilliant things. Where the hell is spellmaking? Why have my enchanting options been completely nerfed? Where have loads of spell types gone?

This I agree with, I want more magic making and enchanting options and MORE SPELLS